Tour
to Toraja with a Local Tour Guide
will be very enjoyable when visit toraja, where You
can have latest information about Local event's such
funeral ceremony or others Local event's that may be
possible to visit on Your stay.

Visit Toraja with Local
Tour guide will be more special, where Toraja is full
of ancient story and only known by generation to
generation, by using Local tour guide than you will
understand more about the culture also the area.

With Local tour guide, you may have the flexible
program and your possibility to stay over night at
local people house and feel the local people life
style or even join in our daily activity will be
appreciate.

" The value to use us as Your Tour Guide will be
valuable and more special, with the different language
and tradition, Toraja is more special when You visit
with Local tour guide who knows the area most and able
to communicate in Local language also know the local
story and " Forbidden" so Your visit will be memorable
and more satisfied".

Toraja's Social Life and
Ritual Cycle

According to myth, the
original ancestor of the Toraja came down from heaven
by way of a star-lit stairway to live in this
beautiful part of earth. This myth, told from
generation to generation continues until today where
the people of Toraja believe that the star- lit
stairway down from heaven is a media for people on
earth to communicate with Puang Matua (The Only One
True God).

The name Toraja was first given by the Bugis Sidenreng
tribe who called them the“Riaja” ("The people
inhabiting the upper part of the mountains").While
the people of Luwu called them,“Riajang” (or "people
inhabiting the west"). Another version says that
‘Toraya’ is coined from the word To (Tau= meaning
people), and Raya (comes from the word Maraya =
great). The two words together mean “great people”, or
the nobility. Eventually, the term morphed into
Toraja. The word “Tana” means land. Therefore Tana
Toraja means the Land of the Nobility.

In social life, the
Toraja adhere to “aluk”, - elsewhere known as “adat”
which are traditional beliefs, rules and rituals
prescribed by the ancestors. Although today most
Torajans are either Protestants or Catholics, the
ancestral traditions rites and ceremonies continue to
be practiced.

The Torajans make a
clear separation between ceremonies and rites
associated with life and those in connection with
death, since these are closely linked to the
agricultural rice planting and harvesting seasons.

Funeral ceremonies may
begin only when the last harvest is cleared and
stored, which is normally in July, and is brought to a
close before the sowing of the new rice seeds for the
next harvest, usually starting September. With the
planting season come the ceremonies requesting for
life, health and prosperity. The Toraja call these the
cycle of smoke rising (rambu tuka) – associated with
life, and smoke descending (rambu solo), associated
with death.

The Toraja live in
small communities where married children leave the
parental home and start a new community elsewhere.
Children belong to both the mother’s and father’s
lines. Nonetheless they all ascribe to one ancestral
home, which is known as the “Tongkonan” from both
father and mother’s line. The Tongkonan is the home
of the don or patriarch of aristocratic families. As
Don or patriarch his main duty it is to maintain unity
among families, villages and communities, and ensure
that ancestral beliefs and traditions are adhered to.

At his death,
therefore, an elaborate funeral ceremony must be held
by the family, which has become the distinguished
event marking the Toraja culture. However, since such
ceremonies require quite a fortune, funerals do not
take place immediately, but only months or years after
the person’s death. Meanwhile the body is wrapped in
cloths and kept in the ancestral home.
The Tongkonan itself is an impressive large house
topped with a saddle-shaped roof resembling the horns
of the water buffalo - with its horns up at the front.
This is unlike the Minangkabau house in West Sumatra,
that has a similar saddle-shaped roof but is placed
lengthwise. Roofs are made of palm or coconut leafs
and the house’s wooden sides are beautifully decorated
with distinct Toraja abstract and geometric designs in
rich natural red, white and black. On its front
supporting pillar are often placed a number of buffalo
horns.

The Tongkonan are often
rebuilt and redecorated, not necessarily because they
are in need of repair, but more to maintain prestige
and influence of the ruling nobility in the area. The
rebuilding of the Tongkonan will of course be
accompanied by elaborate ceremonies that involve
entire communities – not unlike funeral ceremonies,
where relatives bring gifts of pigs and buffaloes
One requirement is the building of a tower, similar to
the one made for funerals, but here the bamboo pillars
point upward to the sky, while for funerals, the
pointed bamboos are planted in the ground.

Following small
ceremonies in the homes, rice seeds are taken from the
granary, then pounded, not by hand, but for this first
ceremony, women loosen their hair and pound the grain
with their bare feet. Baskets of seeds are then
brought to the flooded fields where they are sowed in
nurseries. When the rice plants have grown
sufficiently, a ceremony called maro is held, to
implore for a good harvest, but moreover, also to
request for fertility, for health and prosperity of
the family and the village community.

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